Saudi Killed in Mine Blast on Yemen Border

A Saudi border guard was killed by a landmine explosion on the border with Yemen, the Saudi state news agency SPA said on Friday, quoting an interior ministry spokesman.

Houthi forces in Yemen, battling its internationally recognised government, have fired hundreds of mortars into southern Saudi Arabia and tested Saudi defences with guerrilla-style incursions since Riyadh intervened in Yemen’s civil war last year.

SPA said the mine exploded when it was struck by a vehicle transporting water along a border road on Thursday evening in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan region.

UN-led negotiations have failed to bring peace to Yemen, the poorest Arab country.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies intervened in the war after the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in 2014, driving the government into exile.

The Saudis say their intervention, for which US military personnel are providing logistical support, has halted Iranian expansionism in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has reported dozens of its soldiers or civilians killed in the 20-month-old conflict. Recently, Yemeni authorities have arrested eight suspected Daesh group implicated in a spate of attacks targeting security personnel in second city Aden this year, police said.

Police in the southern port city, headquarters of yemen’s internationally recognised government, also seized silenced pistols and letters from Daesh leaders in Iraq and Syria, a statement said late on Monday.